Sim was previously marketing director for HMV and takes up his new role today. At the same time, the group marketing function has been restructured with three new departments: group CRM; brand creative; and brand marketing.
As part of the restructure, Matt Button has been promoted from head of CRM at HMV to lead the group CRM function, which will be responsible for the purehmv and Waterstone's Card rewards schemes as well as e-commerce and customer insight for both brands.
Waterstone's head of marketing and customer insight, Lee Bannister, is promoted to head of brand marketing, overseeing advertising and promotions for Waterstone's, HMV and music chain Fopp.
Mark Robertson has been given responsibility for managing the Waterstone's design studio along with HMV design and display, as head of the brand creative team.
Each head will have teams from HMV and Waterstone's reporting to them. The company stressed that it remained committed to developing the HMV and Waterstone's brands separately. The offices will also remain separate.
In 2008, HMV Group consolidated its media buying with OMD UK. Across the group it uses Venturethree for brand and campaign creative development. Other agencies it retains are Libertine, QD and Linney.
Sim said although the aim was to optimise access to resources across the group, he was "fully conscious of the need to do this in a way that will preserve their individual identity and associated values".
He said: "As far as both sets of customers are concerned, they will continue to feel they are being engaged by two separate, distinct brands."
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